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petMD Blogs

The Daily Vet is a blog featuring veterinarians from all walks of life. Every week they will tackle entertaining, interesting, and sometimes difficult topics in the world of animal medicine – all in the hopes that their unique insights and personal experiences will help you to understand your pets.

Finding a Vet for Your Exotic Pet

Some veterinarians thrive on the thrill of being faced with new situations every day — me, not so much. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy challenging cases, but I like to feel that I’m entering the fray with some level of competence. I suspect that most owners don’t want their pet to be the first case of its kind that their veterinarians have ever seen. This is a special concern for the owners of non-traditional pets or livestock, basically anything other than dogs, cats, horses, and cattle.

One of the dirty little secrets about veterinary school — strike that, all professional schools — is that there simply isn’t time to teach everything you need to know. The schools focus on the most pressing information (e.g., common diseases in common species), and if you have a special interest outside of these areas, it’s up to you to seek out the information and training.

So how can you ensure that you pick out a vet that has at least some familiarity with your species-of-choice?

If you are looking for a veterinarian who has extensively studied and been tested on their knowledge about a particular type of animal, the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners (ABVP) is a good resource. ABVP diplomates are "veterinarians who have demonstrated expertise in the broad range of clinical subjects relevant to their practice and who display the ability to communicate medical observations and data in an organized, appropriate manner."

ABVP is accredited to offer board-certification in clinical practice for the following practice categories:

Avian Practice

Equine Practice

Beef Cattle Practice

Feline Practice

Canine/Feline Practice

Exotic Companion Mammal Practice

Food Animal Practice

Dairy Practice

Reptile and Amphibian Practice

Swine Health Management

The ABVP website includes a searchable directory that makes finding an expert near (or relatively near) you easy.

As odd as it may sound, your "regular" veterinarian is also a great way to find nearby specialists, as are local clubs and societies formed by owners of unusual pets. Most vets are more than happy to refer cases that fall outside of their comfort range, so feel free to ask, "Do you know of any good sugar glider vets in the area?" If the doctor replies, "I can take care of that for you," ask to see his or her credentials and/or references from clients. Anyone who’s put off by such a request doesn’t deserve your business.

Comments 3

I've often wondered why vet schools haven't split degrees certain areas such as large animal or companion animal or exotics.

It's amazing how many species vet students have to learn. It must be overwhelming! Plus, what's the point of learning bovine c-sections if one plans to go into a dog/cat practice? It makes sense that a large animal vet might need to know about dogs and cats for a farm visit, but would that farmer prefer someone who had more large animal classes or someone who had to learn all species?

I went to vet school to be a horse vet. I did that for a year before I decided that it was not for me, for a variety of reasons. I now see dog and cats, and along the way I picked up an interest in exotic pets. So now I see birds, reptiles and small mammals. I am a member of AAV and AEMV, and my membership to ARAV is pending.

If, while I was in vet school, that someday I would be regularly drawing blood from budgies, I would have laughed long and loud. I still chuckle to myself about it.

Many people that I know who are interested in these animals did not start out this way. They developed an interest later. This includes some board certified specialists for these pets!

It is also very difficult to maintain a practice only seeing exotic pets. Those practices do exist, but they are rare, and are more likely in urban areas that can support a population so the practice/business is sustainable. People assume that because they are small, and inexpensive to purchase, that they are then inexpensive to diagnose and treat. Its more difficult to get samples from very small animals, so I need to be much more skilled to get them, or I need to pay a person with highly developed skills to do it for me. The lab doesn't charge me a lower price to run the tests I need. A radiograph costs the same for a ferret as for a labrador. I often have to get drugs compounded for small animals because I can't get it in a dose size that makes sense--there are only so many times you can split a pill! Often, these pets do not get the same level of care because their owners are unwilling to spend the same amount on them as on their dog. This is not universally true, and there are cases where I end up discounting a service because I would like the owner to pursue it. I recently removed a large lump off a guinea pig. Because of the size of the animal and the size of the lump, this was a very difficult surgery, yet we lost money on it because the owner was not willing to spend money on the pet. We would have made more money (and at least covered costs!) with this same lump on a large dog, and it would have been easier, too!

So, we are back to the same old problem about vets being "too expensive" but its even more so when you own a $10 pet that is seen as disposable by many--but happily not all--people. Its even worse when you are dealing with a reptile that was won as a carnival game prize (yes) and has had months or years of poor care, and its owner is unwilling to consider that they are doing a bad job of caring for their animal.

It would be a wonderful world where we all knew exactly what we would be doing 10 years after graduation, and could then decide to track our education. It would be wonderful if veterinary education were subsidized so that we did not have to go so far into debt to just get the basics down, never mind consider an internship/residency that pays poverty wages (if it pays at all!) to learn everything about all the species we might encounter. But that's not the real world. :)

I remember spending $75 to take a one dollar feeder mouse that my son "rescued" from the pet store because it had mites. The way I saw it, from the time he came into my home he was family and deserved to be treated the same as the other pets. He was also the one that I almost drowned when I gave him his antibiotics and I sat and rocked him for an hour until I knew he would be okay (yes, I held and rocked a mouse - go ahead and laugh!) He lost most of his ears to the mites before we got them under control, but he lived to be 3 and was a lot of fun while we had him :)